Fat cat keeping his New Year's resolution to lose weight

Carol Christia, Express-News

By Carol Christian

Updated 12:03 pm, Friday, December 28, 2012

Dr. Jessica Reyna pets Tiny Tim at the Southside Place Animal Hospital, Wednesday, Dec. 19, 2012, in Houston. A year ago, Tiny Tim weighed 35-pounds and was picked up by BARC just before Christmas and ended up at Southside Place Animal Hospital for treatment and weight loss. This is a one-year update. He's down to 27.6 pounds despite a plateau in the summer when they discovered he had chewed a small hole in a bag of dog food near his sleeping place. Clinic owner Dr. Alice Frei decided earlier this year to keep him as a permanent clinic resident.

Photo: Karen Warren, Houston Chronicle

Dr. Jessica Reyna pets Tiny Tim at the Southside Place Animal...

Dr. Alive Frei with the Southside Place Animal Hospital walks past 34 pound cat named Tiny Tim at the clinic Friday, Jan. 20, 2012, in Houston. The abandoned cat weighed 35 pounds was it was rescued on the 10400 block of S. Kirkwood Rd.Tiny Tim is now on a diet and workout regiment where he must walk about 25 feet four to five times a day. Frei said it will take about two years for Tiny Tim to reach his target weight of about 12 pounds. Currently Tiny Tim at 34 pounds is about the equivalent to an adult human weighing close to 500 pounds.

Photo: Johnny Hanson, Houston Chronicle

Dr. Alive Frei with the Southside Place Animal Hospital walks past...

Dr. Alice Frei with the Southside Place Animal Hospital kisses 34 pound cat named Tiny Tim at the clinic Friday, Jan. 20, 2012, in Houston. The abandoned cat weighed 35 pounds was it was rescued on the 10400 block of S. Kirkwood Rd.Tiny Tim is now on a diet and workout regiment where he must walk about 25 feet four to five times a day. Frei said it will take about two years for Tiny Tim to reach his target weight of about 12 pounds. Currently Tiny Tim at 34 pounds is about the equivalent to an adult human weighing close to 500 pounds.
Photo: Johnny Hanson, Houston Chronicle

HOUSTON — Despite some midnight raids on the food pantry, Tiny Tim has probably done better than most of us with his 2012 resolution to take off pounds.

A gray tabby with a personality as big as his backside, Tiny Tim has been working on his diet-and-exercise regimen since New Year's, when he topped 35 pounds.

Now, with loving care and veterinary expertise at Southside Place Animal Hospital in Houston, the still-fat cat has made it to 27.6 pounds on the long way down to his goal weight.

“I think in an ideal world, he'd be like a 12-to-14-pound cat,” said Dr. Jessica Reyna, one of four veterinarians caring for the big guy who's now a permanent resident at the clinic, where staffers call him Tiny.

Because rapid weight loss can be fatal in cats, Tiny's diet is closely monitored by the dozen clinic staff members.

He's allotted 300 calories a day, divided into two portions.

For the first five or six months of the year, his weight loss was slow but steady until he hit a puzzling plateau.

“We just couldn't get him below the 30-pound mark,” Reyna said.

A staff member solved the mystery when she went to the storage closet that had become Tiny's bedroom. As she picked up an unopened, 28-pound bag of dog food for a client, food trickled out the bottom.

“We realized he had very surreptitiously chewed a hole in the bag, so at night when we would put him up, he would be having midnight snacks,” Reyna said.

“He wouldn't do it in front of us during the day, and there would never be a scrap or a kibble left on the floor,” she said.

Still quite food-driven, Tiny gets exercise walking back and forth to his food bowl at the front of the clinic. To make sure he keeps moving, staffers carry him to the front several times a day, releasing him to make his way to his bed in the back.

“He is still very stiff, but he is moving so much better and so much more than he did when we first got him,” Reyna said.

Picked up by city animal control workers shortly before Christmas last year in far southwest Houston, Tim was so obese he could barely walk when he arrived at BARC Animal Shelter & Adoptions.

Members of the Friends of BARC volunteer group who brought dinner to the city shelter staff last Christmas Eve met the fat cat and quickly bestowed his ironic nickname.

The volunteers decided to take on his recovery as a project, starting with removal from the shelter.

The day after Christmas, Friends volunteer Tim Hebert delivered the stunningly large cat to the Southside Place clinic owned by Dr. Alice Frei. After fruitless attempts to find Tiny's previous owner and several months of treatment, Frei and the clinic staff decided to keep him as a permanent resident.

“As heavy as he is, he's predisposed to become diabetic,” Reyna said. “He's got some special needs, and of course now we've all fallen in love with him.”

It's a natural response to a loving cat, said Hebert, who still visits Tiny.

“I'll frequently go in there and lay down right beside him, because he can't jump in your lap,” Hebert said. “He looks at you with such love and devotion.”

Next up for the celebrity cat who has his own Facebook page, Tiny Tim at Spah, is fatty acid treatments for flaky skin.

“They can really help with skin problems, but they're caloric, so we want to wait until he gets below 25 pounds before we add that on,” Reyna said.